In a bone surgery such as, for example, a total knee replacement (“TKR”) procedure, it is important to carefully prepare a patient's bone to accept an implant in an anatomically correct, precise Location. Various bone cutting tools are available for use during this procedure. A navigated surgical tool may use electronic navigation to locate, fixate, adjust, and/or correct the trajectory and cutting rate of the cutting tool based on a user-defined surgical plan, while allowing the surgeon to use a freehand cutting motion.
An operative navigated surgical tool may include such elements as, for example, a cutting drill having a rotating bur to provide the cuts on the bone, for example, an inner housing into which the drill is mounted, and parts or elements comprising the electronic tracking system, computing unit(s) and software to control and monitor the operations of the cutting tool, etc.
In order to assist in the cutting of the drill, a user and/or surgeon may perform their surgery as usual using the navigation system for additional guidance and understanding of location of the drill. Other systems may be employed to fully automate the cut in the case of a robotic navigation system having a fixed target to assure a pre-determined cut.
Conventional systems may permit control methods wherein a free-hand tool can be used with navigational assistance such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,757,582, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. A navigational system as disclosed therein, provides control for a user/surgeon by determining a distance between the cutting tool and the target shape, and robotically assisting the user/surgeon to make the desired shape on the bone.
Further a user/surgeon may wish to or may be accustomed to using specific drill(s), tracking systems, and/or navigation software for navigated surgeries. However, such user-chosen components (drill, tracking system, etc.) may not operate with or may not be used with currently available, vendor-provided navigated surgical tools. In such a case, the user may have to settle with the surgical system provided by a vendor. It is therefore desirable to provide a navigated surgical tool that can accommodate a wide variety of user-selected surgical drills and tracking systems and can also operate with navigation software, thereby giving the user/surgeon more flexibility in implementing a navigated surgical system with a desired navigated surgical tool.